The Ringer NFL Show - The Biggest Things in Free Agency So Far

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Kevin, Nora, and Steven start by discussing Baker Mayfield’s emotional letter to Browns fans and what it does for the franchise. Then they talk about the biggest things to happen during the free agency period. Host: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti, and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the Icons Club. It is the Ringer NFL show.

part of the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Kevin Park, a regularly scheduled podcast. We'd had so many emergency podcasts. I didn't know if we'd ever have a regularly scheduled podcast here on the feed. But we do, Nora Princezi is here. Nora, hello. Hello, Kevin. Yeah, heart rate's a little lower. It's nice.

We're in the zone. We're in the rhythm. Stephen Ruiz is here. Hi, Stephen. It feels like this is the first time I've been on a normal podcast in like a month and a half. Just have a normal podcast. The Combine podcast, I didn't have a microphone. I hate to break it to you guys.

We haven't done a normal podcast in several years. Yeah. Well, I'm new, so I'm just picking up things. I just made a terrible iced coffee. Maybe at bottom five of my life iced coffee. I don't know what I did. Too much ice? No, no, no.

You can never put too much ice in. It's a concentrate, and I can't tell if I put in way too little water or way too much water. it's just so bad. You know, like when you see a play and you don't know who is at fault because everything, like from the snap, just everything, like the offensive line collapsed, but also the receivers weren't running routes.

You know, the whole thing, right? That's my... When you said a play, my mind went to Broadway. Well, yeah, because you went to Irving Plosity other night. It did. It did. When you think about it, ice coffee is the ultimate team sport, even worse than football.

It really is. Everything has to move together. and my guys weren't ready to play this morning. It's how I put that. And that's on me. And the buck stops here. So it's free agency. It's many of the things.

It's blockbuster trade season. We're going to go through what we think are our most important things of the past couple of days. And then the next few weeks. This is not going to end anytime soon. We're going to have some emergency podcasts in the pipe I'm coming through. I want to start with Baker Mayfield, who wrote a goodbye letter. to a team that has not said goodbye to him. This is a lifeline for the Indianapolis Colts,

who had no quarterback to speak of, and now that there's some, the wheels are turning, and it looked like they were going to let on the cold. On a sudden, Baker, Mayfield was running goodbye notes to a team that hasn't made a decision. So this was prompted by,

if you just look at the timeline, the report that the Browns were in the Deshawn Watson sweepstakes, and that Mayfield is playing on the, fifth year option this year. So around $18 million and he's a lame duck quarterback. We've known it was always a possibility to the Browns could move on from Baker-Methield. We've known that they've always, they've,

they're going to do everything they can to upgrade if that's available. Maybe that means Jimmy Garoflo. Maybe that means a Sean Watson. It doesn't matter. But we knew that was always a possibility because of how badly Baker-Mathield played and how good the rest of the roster is and just

that's how Andrew Barry operates. You thought what, Norprinciad. when you saw a goodbye note from Baker Reagan Mayfield to a team he still plays. I think he's just a little stressed out. My first thought was that with many uncertainties, here is where my head and heart is, is now an iconic line that is going to live

in perpetuity in my brain. I've got to imagine it's hard to see your name in the news constantly. Baker Mayfield is not exactly someone who historically has kept his emotions inside, which I respect. I think the question is just like if none of the alternatives work out, because there's always been a chance that, you know, it's not as though, this is not like a Jimmy Garoppolo type situation or it's kind of like, okay, here we go.

This is the end of the road. Everybody knows it. Everybody is talking openly about it. Solid chance Baker Mayfield is the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns. Clearly, they would like to. to find an upgrade, but they might not be able to. Extremely high, extremely high chance that he wrote, he plays to the team he said goodbye to yesterday.

Well, he said it's not a goodbye message. Yeah, okay. It's a with many uncertainties, here is where my head and heart is message. But it's just going to be a little awkward. First of all, it's a goodbye message. Second of all, even if it's not, the other scenario is a, it's just with many uncertainties, here's where my head and heart messages. And even that would be weird if he still played on it.

a little awkward. Yes, I agree. What did you think? My first thought was this is worse for the Browns than it is for Mayfield. Like getting to this point where he's writing a goodbye letter that's not a goodbye letter in March. And they don't, like what you said, they don't have a plan at quarterback. So there's a very good chance that Mayfield could be starting in September. And I have to think this ruins any trade leverage they have. I don't think Baker was a player that a lot of teams are going to be clamoring to trade for at first.

But now that he's already saying goodbye. he was trying to get some control over the process on the front end if there was going to be a trade. Do you know what he should have done? He should have hired Odell's dad because that guy gets results done. This is a naive feeling? Does Amari Cooper have a family member on deck

if there's a problem? I'm your man, Amari. I'm your man Amari. I got plenty of Baker Mayfield clips too if you need them. Guys, I really don't feel like this was a move out of strategy. I think this was the product of feelings and feelings. I disagree because he, remember, he did his little message where he's like,

I'm logging off of social media. It's too toxic. I'm not coming back. So he had to make the decision that he was going to return. Then he had to write this letter, which took two screenshots, a two screenshots, two screenshots to do. That was too much. Yeah, but you know why I'm logging off of social media and this is why the thing is like weird

is because the majority of the time, anyone who does that is doing it for social media attention over their post about how they're logging. off of social media. And if you want the attention that badly, then odds are at a certain point you are going to seek out more of it, which involves getting back on social media. That's a good point. That's a good point. So do you think this was planned all along? Like he knew he was going to get back on social media. Well, let's everybody who's ever said goodbye to social media. What, in which part? The goodbye to social media or just the here's where my head and heart is? This. Or both?

The latter. Okay. So anyone who's ever said goodbye to social media has planned to return to social media. The whole point of posting that, unless there's like an event that is extremely serious. Leaving social media is the Tom Brady retirement of social media related actions. Unless there's like a serious event where you just have to get off. 99% of the time, someone's saying I'm not going to be on social media anymore. They're doing that so you get to say, oh, don't do that.

don't deprive us of your great posts and then they'll go, oh, okay, I'm, I need to post. The people need even to post. That's the point of saying that. No one is that in the history of the world. No, but that's called lying, Nora. It's called lying. People are like, well, right. No one's mentioned.

Yeah, no, certainly no one. No one has ever needed anyone else else's post. All right, let's go back to this, this head and heart message here. It was posted at 1003 on a Tuesday night. if you're Andrew Barry right now, Stephen, does this change anything for you? No, not at all. I don't care about a post on social media.

I don't think it changes anything because I think they were planning on moving on already. We've never seen a quarterback play on the fifth year option. We've never seen that. I think Lamar might do it this year, but I think the Ravens are going to get something done before then. Sam Darnold might do it, but Sam Darnold. But this is the first time we've seen a quarterback

who was drafted by a team, first overall, was celebrated by the fans, was celebrated for changing the culture, getting them back to the playoffs, and now he's going to be doing something that we've never seen another quarterback do. And I think that matters. I think that tells us everything we need to know

about how the Browns view Baker and their future with them. It's just sad. I honestly, like, for Browns fans. And, you know, Dominic Foxworth made the best point maybe the last couple months was the Joe Burrow is what Browns fans thought Baker was going to be. And now you've seen, since Baker got there four years ago, you've seen so many of their franchises actually have their culture changed

and the Browns aren't one of them. I believe the long-term Andrew Barry, Kevin's fans that are going to win. I mean, they won a playoff game last year. Let's not act like it's been a complete disaster of a tenure there. But as a Baker Mayfield, it's not the long-term answer. That's sort of been established. Norah, who is? I just, I don't know. I mean, look, the closest thing to an action that this would have been in response to, was that he posted the Instagram the day their executives met with DeShon Watson, which obviously a very complicated situation. Maybe they think that they can be a front runner in that,

and that's the answer. If not, a factor that I don't think we should discount in this situation is just Cleveland's history of quarterback, right? Like, you can be an incredibly... Is it good? It's good. Is that what you mean? It's not great, Kev. It's not amazing. And I think you can be an incredibly smart person

like most of the people running that team are and still have that on the back of your mind that it can get a lot worse. I know sometimes it didn't feel like it, but it really can get worse than a quarterback who's not costing you a ton of money who, when healthy, has been capable of getting a good team to the playoffs.

Now, that's a pretty muted version of praise, but still, it can be a lot worse. But I think you have to see what happened in Los Angeles this past year and also think, yes, it can get a lot worse. But guess what? It can get a lot better, too. Yeah. And I don't think we're going to get better with this guy. So Jimmy Garoplo, like, who is in the Matt Stafford role? I'd rather say, I don't know who the quarterback is going forward than I do know who the quarterback is and he's not.

So I agree once it, once it starts costing you. true starting quarterback money. Before that point, I have trepidation. Okay, but Stephen, let's talk about Flores here. If they move Baker-Mayfield somewhere, and the worst-case scenario is their role with Case Keenum in 2022, what does that look like for the Browns? I mean, I think it looks like last year.

You could argue that Case Keenum was the better quarterback of the two last year. When Baker was hurt. When Baker was hurt. I don't think. as a higher ceiling. Oh, yeah. I agree. I agree. And it's hard to forget that. I think Baker Mayfield minus a labrum equals case kingdom. Okay. Okay, but we didn't give Mitch Trubisky that same leeway during his last year

when he had the best stretch of his career after suffering the same injury and wearing the same shoulder harness and getting the bears of the playoffs. It's weird how we pick and choose what excuses guys get. Stephen Ruiz. Are you mounting a defensive Mitch Trimisky right now? Is that what's happening? No. You want to do Trimisky right now? I'm mounting prosecution against Baker Mayfield and using Mitch as evidence. Like, I just don't understand how, why does the one injury of not affect Mitchell Trevisky and actually give him superpowers, apparently. But it makes Baker Mayfield into the quarterback that he's always been when the game script

isn't in his favor. Because Baker Mayfield has before in his life had a pretty good NFL season. Right, when everything goes right. When he's able to run play action 20 times a game. But what happens when you don't do that? That's always been the question with Baker. and the answer has always been, well, he's not good enough. Sure, but that is a more complicated question than Mitch Trisky, who's been in bad situations,

but has never been good. That's a good point, but he was good for that last stretch. It was Bears' career. He got the Bears into the playoffs and he had people wondering if they should pay Mitch Trubisky. Go look up the articles. They exist. And look up the stats. He was like one of the top 10 quarterbacks statistically.

I need to emphasize that over the last month of his last season in Chicago. go and he got them to the playoffs he won MVP hey if the brown said with hindsight got the redraft of 2018 NFL draft who did pick first once ago Lamar Jackson has the most value from that draft according to

annual value um all right Baker's fifth by the way think people football reference he'd to work on there he's more valuable according to pro football reference than Fred Warner so back to the lab for proof of reference. All right.

Nora, what's your most important thing of the past couple of base? So, what I put down is the bucks trading for Shaq Mason from the Patriots for a fifth round. Bucks are my number one, too. Absolute steal. What? The bucks were my number one thing, too.

Yeah. So I just want to expand it a little bit. The bucks just being all the way back is my number one thing. Yeah. I mean, so Ryan Jensen resides probably gives them a discount of a couple million bucks a year, wants to play with Brady. They get Carlton Davis back pretty cheaply when you compare it to the rest of the cornerback market, but also to J.C. Jackson's deal in particular.

Then they do what I think amounts to just like absolutely raiding the Falcons. Russell Gage would be the number one receiver on Atlanta's depth chart. I don't know where he slots for Tampa Bay, like, fourth. This is a clinic. With Shaq Mason, I don't know if New England is doing this to clear cap space for something. I just don't know.

There have been certainly times in the past when I've looked at something they've done and been like, I don't get it. And it's ended up working out. But the more I think about this, the less I understand it. He's 28 years old. He's one of the better guards in the league consistently. He's a better run blocker than a past blocker. but a fifth round pick and $16 million over the next two years

and giving up one of the better, I mean, you could argue that Shaq Mason and J.C. Jackson were the best players on that team relative to their positions around the league last season. I find letting go of both of them a strange way to set up Mac Jones' second year. maybe that just doesn't matter, but Tom Brady is making a run for executive of the year. Yeah, so the buck's my thing as well, because Tom Brady had to announce he was coming back

at the exact moment that he announced he was coming back. If they were a couple days later, the entire office has changed, the entire franchise changed, Tom Brady's 20-22 changes. In very short order, they figured out what they looked like this year. and they're Super Bowl contender.

Like that's it. And there's a, there's, there's two sort of alternate universes here, none of which are good. The one is that Tom Brady never comes back and most of these guys don't, don't want to come, would rather,

would have to be overpaid like the damn jaguars, that kind of thing. The other is that Tom Brady, uh, comes back, but these guys don't. And that Chris, you know,

somehow, uh, Brian Jensen doesn't want to come back. Carl and Davis doesn't want to come back. Russell Gage, you know, doesn't, to take $30 million, whatever it is.

But for the bucks to get whipped into shape this quickly is maybe the defining story of the NFC over the past couple of days. Steven? Yeah, I think this team over the last three years just goes to show how much of a luxury having not only a great quarterback is, but having a quarterback that really doesn't limit your timeline. You're not really thinking, oh, we have to keep this together for five years down the line. They're really just trying to win the Super Bowl every year.

And every individual season is different. in this contained its own contained thing. Totally. And I think teams like the Packers, maybe the Packers are doing that now, they seem to be just not giving a shit about their CAP situation in three years. So I think that's the one lesson you can take away from this, is when you have this team that's ready to win, just go all in now and go every year making its own thing.

And I think that's the best way to team build. So I would put the Chiefs in that too with Breivich, because I think there's some GMs where okay, in a vacuum, they're going to build. Maybe that's Andrew Barry. Maybe that's Chris Bauer, where they're going to draft well. They're going to process well. They're going to do all the things that we on podcast say are so great. But then there's Jason Light and Brett Veach and Brian Gooden who were just like, we have this window and, okay, Mickey Loomis is the OG of this particular phenomenon where you just make three, four moves every offseason to win the Super Bowl.

That's it. And you're thinking, okay, how do I win the Super Bowl? And, you know, the Chief's going out and getting Justin Reed because Terran Matthews is not coming back is a pretty good example here where it's like, okay, we have a hole to fill. Let's fill it. And we'll worry about the other stuff later. There are other franchises where they say, you know what? I don't know.

Maybe the draft. like maybe the second waiver for agency. And when you're all in like this, and all in is a state of mind, I think that the Rams thing, because there's a lot of famous people, people got the wrong idea. All in is just making sure that everything is addressed

every single year and that you understand the barrier for entry in the modern NFL and you make those four or five moves every single year to make sure that the 53-man roster is as good as it can possibly be. So the bucks are in that mode. Jason Light has acquitted himself very, very well from the time he got Tom Brady. I love this team and I wouldn't be surprised if they're in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs example is interesting from that perspective, just to go back to that for a second,

because I do think built into this, particularly actually with what Green Bay is doing, is just the acceptance that there's probably going to be a year somewhere where it stinks. And you have to pay the bills. You have to do what the bills did in that year when they had just a zillion dollars in dead money and kind of reset everything. The Chief's example is kind of curious from that perspective, right? Because their assumption is that they are going to have Patrick Mahomes for a decade plus playing at an extremely high level. And you don't want to throw away a season in that. So at some point, it'll be really fascinating to see how they handle it.

Because I think if you look at Tampa and if you look at Green Bay right now, probably there's some level of not comfort but acceptance with the idea that in X number of years there's going to need to be a reset. And that's fine. Like I think the way that the salary cap works now,

the aggressive teams are just sort of more comfortable with that idea. But there is a little bit of an asterisk of are you comfortable with that idea if it costs you a season of Patrick Mahomes? I'm not so sure. Well, okay. Right.

But also it's younger GMs. It's GMs who understand, who understand the cap has always risen with the exception to the two pandemic years. Basically for the entire time, they've been in charge or been in a number two or number three organization. If you're becoming a GM in the last five, six years, they're just more comfortable. That's why we see more blockbuster traits. I mean, part of the NFL, everyone talks about conservative. It was, you know, just from a from a player acquisition standpoint for so long. And a lot of that was just because the cap wasn't rising.

It was older GMs. GMs were coming from like the football, almost like the coaching world or like the scouting world. And it wasn't just this forward thinking like, hey, we can do this, we can take these big swings. These guys didn't like 20 years ago, guys were just worried about getting fired. And so they would just like, they wouldn't do anything.

They would just draft seven guys a year and be like, whatever. It's also kind of why free agency became a boogeyman. And you still see that with some, writers who've been around for like a long time were like, well, of course the Jaguar is overpaying a free agency. That's what free agency is, overpaying. And it's like, that's not really how this works anymore. Free agency is a viable team building

strategy. And there are a lot of GMs who understand that. And thankfully for the league, a lot of those GMs happen to be running teams with great quarterbacks. And I know there's a chicken and egg thing there. But it's fascinating to see how the league has changed and

just the just the new wave of GMs and how they've how they've approached things. All right. Stephen, what's your most important thing? I'm going to go with the Chargers. Someone had to bring up the Chargers,

and it's going to be me. I had him on my list. I'm pushing him back against the notion that this is like the same old Chargers hype. The Chargers have been hyped up like a decade now, and it always comes crashing down. They have a really good quarterback now.

Right, and you're underrating him by just calling him really good. They have the second best quarterback in the NFL now. maybe the best quarterback if you really think about it. And that changes things. They have a much bigger margin for Aaron. Not only do they have one of the best quarterbacks, they have one of the best quarterbacks on a rookie contract.

So I have no problem with them maybe overpaying for J.C. Jackson, maybe overpaying for Mike Williams, maybe overpaying for Sebastian Joseph Day. These are players that I think fill holes that they had last year. And I think it allows Brandon Staley to employ the type of defense we thought he was going to bring over from the Rams and that he just couldn't run with the players he had. Like Sebastian Joseph Day was the most telegraphed

free agency move of all time, maybe. Everyone had him peg to the Chargers. J.C. Jackson gives them a corner they could play on the backside of trips that they don't have to worry about. He has his Jalen Ramsey now. Now, J.C. Jackson isn't Jalen Ramsey, but he can give you like 90% of that. And that changes everything for their defense.

Those two players, I think, change a lot for their defense. And if they don't add another defensive player, I still think they jump 10 places in the defense. of rankings next year. I will say Oh, I didn't even I didn't even mention Killeel Mack.

Pretty good. Pretty good player. Pretty good. The most telegraphed move before Joseph Day coming to the Chargers was Bart Scott following Rex Ryan from Baltimore

to the Jets to build the defense, build the culture. I believe Rex Ryan was like at his house at midnight. It was all, you know, it was classic, classic Jets.

All right. So I agree. The Chargers were on my list as well. The charge Hargers are doing what we thought they were going to do. And that's a good thing, which is that they had a whole. And listen, they had a nice pre-agency period last year. They just had more holes than we anticipated.

They went out and they short up their offensive line with Corey Winsway with Matt Filer. Those were good kind of doubles, singles that they needed to do. Mike Williams had to do it. J.C. Jackson, best cornerback on the market, $40 million guaranteed. That's fine. I'm not going to freak out about that. And then a cool little Mac. You know, I think that we're looking at a pretty obvious playoff team.

I got to see a little more for me. Just the depth in the AFC, Stephen, is such that, like, I'm going to withhold extreme. Like, I'm not even sure. This is a weird thing to say, but, like, coming off the Super Bowl, like, even the Bengals I'm skeptical of just because of how deep the AFC is right now. I got to see a little more, but I don't think they're going to be playing Week 18 trying to tie the Raiders again. I don't think they're going to be that level of team this year, nor are charges. Yeah, look, I think ultimately all you can ask for a team in that position in the off season is to fill the holes. I think they've very, very, very, very clearly done that.

Yeah, is three years, $24 million a lot for Sebastian Joseph's day, I guess kind of. But that run defense was 31st in EPA and success rate per play last season. They had to do something. He's the perfect player. I mean, we saw how significant. losing him was, at least for time, for the Rams, it really made a difference in what they were able to do. I think that'll be just plug and play successful.

And then you can, yeah, they gave J.C. Jackson a lot of money in some ways. Kind of the Byron Jones contract. I don't know if a couple years after that you're too upset about that, right? Like, yes, it was big relative to what Carlton Davis, other corners seem to be getting. but the cornerback market in general is not exactly spiking. Like, neither of those deals was super, holy crap, money-wise. So it seems like they're probably pretty satisfied with where that went. And they should be better, right?

Like, there are things that they needed to fix, run defense significantly among them. They needed a cornerback. They did it. They have more flexibility. in the draft now. I just, is it maybe a slight overpay in a couple cases,

sure, but that's the difference between like an A and an A minus, maybe, but it's just, yeah, the Chargers type is intensifying, I think, for a good reason. Ruiz, I know we haven't had to draft yet, but give me the Chargers seed this year. I would say it's so hard to pick them over the Chiefs, but

I would pick them as the favorites over the Chiefs right now. And that's the first time I've done that in three years or picked anyone over the Chiefs in three years. And no, no, I'm not going to do that. I think they're level. I think the Chiefs are 1A and they're 1B in the AFC. And the only reason I would put the bills above them in like the seeding hierarchy is because they play in a different division.

They're not playing Russell Wilson and Patrick Malins. I think the bills, I think the Chiefs might be a better team than the bills, but I think the bills are going to end up with a better record, if that makes sense. Do you find it, I, I, still find it strange that the Broncos odds are tied for fifth best in the NFL for Super Bowl and the charges behind me. I wouldn't. This might be an old take exposed in a couple months, but like I would I would empty my bank account

that the charges are going to have a better season than the Broncos. Yeah, I don't get that at all either. Like Nathaniel Hackett, he's a rookie head coach. We have no reason to be optimistic about him. I think Russell Wilson you know, getting hooked up with a new offensive coordinator, that's going to take some time to work out. It always does with Russell Wilson.

They just lost Big Fangio, so I think the defense might take a step back. I know they just got Randy Gregory. But I don't know, man, it's hard to really be confident that the Broncos are going to be the team we think they're going to be. I wouldn't be surprised if they're 8, 9, 9, and 8 again around that same area. I think they're a wildcard team.

It's fine. Yeah. Super Bowl futures to me are very straight. I don't bet on football. that's well established, but like some of these are making me want to put down 10 bucks. Like the Ravens being plus 2,200 Bengals, Titans, like the Saints have, maybe this is like a weird Deshawn Watson hedge, but the Saints have are more favorites when the Super Bowl than the Ravens, Bengals, and Titans. I'm not really sure what's going on there. I mean, it has to be an damn Cowboys.

An AFC depth thing, maybe. Like I think the one thing we didn't mention about the bucks is it's not. just that the bucks have brought everyone back. It seems like everyone in the NFC is going to take a minor step back. Like even the Rams are losing people, the package are losing people. The only team that might take a step forward is the 49ers. We don't even know who their quarterback is going to be in a week run. Yeah, 90s plus 1,400. All right. Nora, what else? Can we talk about Randy Gregory and can we talk about the Cowboys? Yeah. That was one of mine. Let's talk about it. So obviously, Randy Gregory goes to Denver, five years, 70 million. Um, clearly a high risk, high reward thing for

the Broncos. He's a really, really, really good player. You're also taking someone who has done clearly a lot of work to be more comfortable socially and in his work environment, to not feel a need to turn to the substance abuse stuff that that has taken him off the field so many times. You're taking that person out of their comfort zone and maybe that's complicated. A little bit Strange circumstances. The Cowboys were willing to pay the same amount according to his agent, but insisted on salary forfeiture language that spiked the deal because it would have been activated in case of a fine as opposed to a suspension. It is often in their contracts. It's not usually enforced, sort of complicated.

Again, I think this is sort of a high risk, high reward thing. for Denver, which, fine. He's a really, really talented, good player. I remember talking to people at the combine and saying, like, how does it make sense for him to go anywhere besides Dallas? He's comfortable there. He's got his setup. Like, that's all good.

And people are just saying, this is football. He's really talented. Somebody's going to, a couple teams are going to decide they want to roll the dice. I think it's sort of more significant for Dallas because I'm just looking at the Cowboys. is off season thus far. And you've got to imagine that they wanted to find a couple core players that they were maybe willing to move on from and try to get some picks back,

given how much of a crunch there in salary cap-wise. They did that to a degree for a fifth with Amari Cooper, but that was a little bit more of a salary dump. It doesn't seem like that's really working out. And then they have one of the bigger free agents that they allegedly wanted to resign, go somewhere else. And they're in this situation where it's a team that's trying to stay competitive. I mean, the NFC is pretty wide open, but they don't have money.

They're not recouping a lot of picks. And now they have another hole opening at EdgeRusher, which maybe they will try to fill with Von Miller. but it just doesn't seem like the needle is moving in any sort of positive way in Dallas. Ruiz? Are the Cowboys on a fraud watch? No, I'm putting Jerry Jones on Wash Watch, actually.

Oh! Yeah, he's done. He's cooked. He tried to play his league. I think he's become a little too self-aware of his reputation. Okay. Going up. He thinks he thinks he's some like master businessman man, and I don't think that

is really working it for him anymore. And I think the beginning of the end was the Zieg contract negotiation. Oh, God. This is the beginning of the end of a lot of things. In Jerry's prime, he made Emmett Smith, the leading Russia in NFL history. He made him hold out for two games because he played

hardball because he didn't want to give him a contract. To the best running back in the NFL. Zeeq went to Cabo and Jerry Jones like here. Yeah. Destroy my franchise. He came in overweight and he still paid him. And he's like, I'm going to give you all the money you want. And then the DAC Prescott Gambit did not pay it did not work out for him. He ended up paying

extra money for that. Jerry's washed. And also, the Dak Prescott Gambit, what did that look like to him? The DAC was going to have an awful year and he was going to get to pay him less. Like, I never understood what exactly he was after in the waiting to sign

DAC thing. We know how quarterback contracts work. Dak wasn't going to be like, actually, I've thought about it and I'm ready to take a lot less because I'm bored. And they loaded up. on weapons for him. They're like, we're going to give you everything you need to have a career year in hope that you don't or take a pay cut.

I don't know. Jerry Jones, wash, washed, wash. He's not even on washed watch watch. He's washed. He's washed.

Wow. Put on washed watch and then taken off washed wash wash and move to washed. Wow. I can't say that. Yeah. Trying to say that five times in the row would be very difficult. Stephen, what else do we need to talk about?

I don't know. Is there anything else that we need to talk about? Yeah. We need to talk with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. That's the last remaining thing on my list. I think you alluded to this.

Nora, did we have the same list? Did you have, so I had... Did you copy off my list? I didn't have Randy Gregory. Did you copy off my list? I had the Bucks and Jack Mason. I had the Randy Gregory situation. I had the Chargers and I had Baker Mayfield

going on Instagram. And then I have the Jaguars spending a large amount of money. List or on fraud watch. I didn't have a list. But I am writing about the Jaguars right now. So I should have probably brought him up. Okay. So I have a hot take.

I understand what the Jaguars are doing. I do too. Okay. So we're all going to laugh. The Christian Kirk contract is bad. I get it. And part of this is you talk about telegraph. moves. I think Christian Kirk is an example of like three weeks ago, or maybe even longer,

they were like, we're going to zero it. We're going to build our offices around Christian Kirk. And I understand what kind of position he plays. And I understand what he brings to an offense. But I think that there are trade candidates out there that you could get for less money for like a mid-round pick than Christian Kirk. And I would have called. I also understand what position he plays, which is slot receiver, which is what led him have his career year last season, which is not really a premium value position,

even though receiver is. I think that means you're completely done with your existing hopeful slot receiver Leviska Cheneau. Yes, but also part of it is like one of the reasons like the Browns were able to get huge value last year in the defensive backs is like you take a slot

corner who's undervalued and you pay him less than an outside corner would be. But part of the problem is if you're paying a slot receiver like Christian Kirk and you're paying him like an elite receiver, then he's lost the value of an underutilized guy. Right. That's exactly the point. Right. This is terrible. I mean, this is all the Trent Balky effect, right? They're overpaying because guys aren't going to come want to play, even though they have Trevor Lawrence. Right. Okay. Yes. So, so the, the Kirk thing is is an overpay. It is something that, again, like, you get your

heart sit on it and it's just there's not a lot of flexibility that that's about the mistake. But I also understand signing Brandon Shirf going out and getting NFL players. They just needed to do something. And it was interesting to me because I talked to John Dorsey a few years ago when he first started with Browns and they just traded for Tyrod Taylor. And I was like, I don't know, man, this is a little weird, right? A little weird to trade for Tyrod Taylor. And he was like, you had to do it.

Otherwise, you're going to have to pay a bunch of other guys like. 25% more because it looks like we're not an NFL franchise, right? And I thought about that. And I know that's maybe a little bit of a galaxy brain thing. But like, at some, you're seeing what happens here when word around the league is that you're not serious. And it's that you have to give people a lot more money. And even if you have Trevor Lawrence, I don't think Trevor Lawrence proved enough last

year the guys are like, oh, Trevor Lawrence is going to solve this thing. like Trevor Lawrence, like Doug Peterson has credibility. Trevor Lawrence has been good, but I don't think anybody's going to Jackson though right now being like, we're going to build on this. And by the way, they did this five, six years ago. You know, that was the backbone of the 2018 team was just spending a ton of money on Calaisaas Campbell

and Malik Willis knows guys and overpaying. And, you know, I did a couple of stories on that and ended up working, but then bills came due on that. But this is what the Jaguars had to do, which is kind of spend foolishly, get NFL guys in there and hope that some of these guys end up being okay. I'm completely unfussed by the Sherf deal because Brandon Sherf has an injury history, but when he is on the field is a very, very good one of the top players at his position. and they desperately needed to improve that offensive line. I think that counts. The Kirk thing bothers me because if you're,

so it's really a two-year $39 million contract. Like that's still way too much, by the way. Still pretty rich. That's $19.5 million annual value. That is barely under what the browser will be paying, Amari Cooper. And it is barely under what the Packers would spend on Devante Adams in that two-year time frame if they,

used the tag. I just, so Kirk got to play 76% of his snaps in the slot last season after Larry Fitzgerald retired and he was in a more natural role where he was more successful. He went from averaging 1.4 yards per route run in 2020 to 1.9. That range is like Keenan Allen, Jalen Waddle, good effective players, but not because, in part because of the position, not like a Devante Adams situation. So not only is it an overpay, and by the way, that's his best year of production by a significant margin.

So you are hoping that someone who is coming off by far his best year is not only going to equal that, but if you compare it to what the other players at that position who are getting that type of money, actually improve on it. So fine, you want to get good NFL players in the building. I'd probably still, you'd rather have Christian. Kirk than not, that's fine. But you could probably have a better player than Christian Kirk is the problem. It's not, it's, there's opportunity cost as opposed to just an overspend issue.

Stephen. I'm not so big on the Sherp deal for the same reasons we laid out on the Kirk deal. He's, he's, he's still a guard. You're playing premium money for a non-premium position. And with him, he's a guy that has had trouble stayed on the field. So there's a good chance that he's not even going to be playing a lot. And it just goes back to the theme of them overpaying to get NFL players in the building. And it all comes back to Urban Meyer.

I really think that's the reason why they're overpaying this year is because Trevor looked terrible. Even though if you watch the film, he looks like a top 15 quarterback already. The results just don't show it. But NFL players aren't grinding film. They're not watching Trevor Lawrence going, oh, yeah, he really went through his progressions there but got sack. Like they just see his stats and they're like, oh, he's not a good player. this is still an unsurious team. Until they're able to get Trevor playing at a level where he is drawing in free agents,

this is what they're going to have to do. So I don't hate them for the strategy. I just don't like the players they chose to spend on. That's Stephen Mores's way of saying NFL players don't know the game as well as he does. They don't know ball. Amari Cooper could have went to the Jaguars and he picked Baker Mayfield over Trevor Lawrence. Sorry, he doesn't know ball. It sounds like he didn't pick Baker Mayfield.

Yeah. Maybe he knew. That's a heart and head announcement. Maybe he knew something that we didn't. Also, in addition to the sort of headline moves that we're talking about, we talked about the bucks sort of raiding the Falcons on offense. The Jaguar seemed to have a real fascination with the Falcons defense, which... How could you not?

I don't know about you guys. Not necessarily like the most impressive point. to find new players? The Urban Meyer hire, I, I, go ahead. Go ahead. Go back to you. Urban Meyer hire, when you think about just the collateral damage and the long term, like, Trevor Lawrence, Trevor Lawrence's Jaguar's career could realistically have been ruined by that

hire because now they're, as we're saying, they're overpaying for above average players in aggregate. And we have no idea if that's going to work. and then that only kind of leads to more overpaying for above average players. That's just kind of the tailspin you get in, right? Like, it's not like they're going to go from,

they're going to win eight games next year, and then everyone's going to be like, we're going to take a lot less money to go play for the Jags. It's just not really how team building works. I can't think of a worse hire over the past, like, 15 years, right? Maybe Bobby Petrino. Maybe Bobby Petrino, but even then, at least he had the decency to step up, step, step away on his own.

Yeah. And then Mike Smith coached him up right after that. Right. Yeah, yeah, they bounced back. Yeah, it might be the worst higher at all time. Freddie Kitchens was real bad, but they were able to kind of... Oh, Freddie Kitchens was nowhere near as bad as Urban Meyer. Freddie Kitchens was bad.

I'm not saying Freddie Kitchens was good. But I feel confident that Urban Meyer was significantly worse than Freddie Kitchens. As a coat, if we just take the bad guy, elements out of it. Like, just as a pure coach, I think they were, they were, they were both extremely bad. They were both as bad as you could get. But I think Urban Meyer was franchise wrecking bad where Freddie Kitchens was just kind of dumb bad.

Urban Meyer also did a lot, was a little bit more, um, I think the personnel stuff mattered more. Yeah. That's what we're seeing now. Yeah. I mean, like that, that makes it a clear win for, for Herb. Winning off the field, as they say. Kevin Clark is defending Urban Meyer. I'm just saying, I'm, I'm thinking, I'm just trying to throw people in the Urban Meyer bucket.

I think there have been some real bad hires. I'm trying to think, I mean, like. I think, I think, I think Herb gets a bucket to himself. I mean, yeah, it's, it's Herb on his own. Then you got Freddie Kitchens, Mario Cristobal at Miami. Mario, Chris, Paul, Miami. A lot of bad coaching. Any, any, any, any, any, any, varsity sports since Gary Williams retired.

that's marijuana pack watch um all right anything else guys now that i've accidentally defended urban mire did we go through we went through your whole list Kevin because it was also my list got it that's right oh well i wanted to this podcast unaware of the exercise I did I did I did it wasn't a text even I'm not doing texting were you just grinding Mike locksley film no somehow I accidentally turned off my eye messaging

yesterday and I wasn't getting any text and I was very concerned. I fixed that. Let's let's let's let's let's let's let's do a little an electric performance from you Ruiz's his weekend texts texts text us on Sunday night that he'd be ready in an hour during a podcast that we were doing on Sunday night and then turns his I message off on Tuesday night

and so doesn't get the exercise that we were doing but still acquits himself quite well. What an electric week for you. I'm the urban mire of phone users. No, you're like the guy who shows up to training camp and, like, plays himself into shape. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I am. You still brought the heat. Hey, I want to shout out the Ravens because I think they're doing, I think they're just,

just quietly handling their business. So they signed Marcus Williams, one of the best safeties on the market, which I think was important. And Morgan Moses, three years 15, pretty good deal. You saw some people thinking that, that. five a year for Morgan Moses, a nice little depth. So it is a nice little addition, considering the depth of tackle. So I'm feeling good about the Baltimore Ravens 2022.

Can I give a similar shout out to the Buffalo Bills? Sure. Just, I just, I like it. Handling their biz. Handling BIS. They released A.J. Klein and Feliciano. And then they. Low cost moves, though.

I think Tim Settle. Really like Tim Settle coming in at defensive tackle there. You're a Settlehead? I'm a Settlehead. I'm going on the record as a Settlehead. Jady McKissick. Nothing too splashy. Two years seven.

Just getting some value, taking care of biz. I like it. Can we start the... Do you want to shout out at AFC contender for making incredibly boring moves? Sensible moves. No, I want to go the opposite. I want to start the Chris Ballard fraud talk.

It's been five years now. Get a quarterback. Get a quarterback. You sure you want to do this at minute 45 of the podcast? This is a number. If you made a list, you could have made this number one. I should have made a list. I should have made a list.

But all I'm going to say is one. Do you have a list of people you want to put on fraud watch, watch watch or might? I'm a big pack watch guy. No, I'm a fuel guy. It just comes to me when I hear their name. Yeah. I don't plan it out.

You want to give us a Chris Bauer take? Yeah, I think it's time that we stop celebrating just cultivating Capspace. Like, do something with the Capspace. Caspace is only good if you do something with it. And he hasn't done anything with it in the five years since Andrew Luck retired or ever long it's been. And make a move. All right. Win a playoff game.

I would say, and I'm a in general fan of both these guys, I would say that Chris Bauer is the front office version of Brandon State. which is that he is overrated because he, overrated by the media because he explains the process well. Yes. Which is something. And it shows you all we can go off of. This is something we've said going back to when, you know,

Mays and now we're talking about this in 2017, right? We're not all smart enough to sit here. Only Ruiz can grind tape and figure out who's actually a top 15 quarterback. But everybody else, everybody else has to just go by the process, the thought process. everybody explaining why they made a move and saying, okay, that made sense, right? Because you cannot, with the exception of Sebastian Joseph Day,

we have no idea how a lot of these for agents are going to look with their new team. And so when it's the off season, when it's the draft, when it's free agency, when it's trade season, we're taking people's words for it. And so they're always by nature going to overrate someone with a good explanation of what's happening. And Chris Bauer, I think, has made some great moves. I think, you know, he drafted two all pros in his, I believe, his first draft. He has stacked talent at some positions, but he has not gotten into the elite of the sport.

I would say, you know, a similar phenomenon that happened with the Browns, where I overrated the Browns process because they were talking about it. And they ended up working because they ended up getting a lot of guys, you know, with those sort of quote unquote process picks. But it took a while. And meanwhile, the damn Steelers, who never did a tell. down who never decided to just, you know, sell out for the fourth pick in the draft. They were better every single year because, I don't know, they had things that we can't explain, like culture and just better players. You know, they found better players and they didn't have to tear down the franchise for it. So we're always going to overrate the guys with explanation.

Like Mitch Trubisky? Like Mitch Trubisky. Now comes the process. The sewers are finally processing. But so are the Browns. Because Baker just sent a head and heart message. So that's my take on Howard, is that the media is going to default to guys who bring you in to the process. No, that's a good point. I agree with you. He is the brand and stay late atms.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for agreeing with my point. Nor, anything else, bud? It's fun, guys. We went through the list. we'll be back, we'll go on through our lists. That's true.

Some people don't needless. I'm like, I'm like Jay-Z. Have you seen the Jay-Z documentary? He just goes in and he just records the songs off the top of the head. That's me. Really? Yeah, I'm Jay-Z.

You guys are... I haven't seen the Jay-Z documentary. It's good doc. You should watch it. Good doc. Rick Rubin makes a great appearance in it. It's good doc. We'll probably be back for an emergency podcast in the next couple of days.

If not, we'll be back next week. But you know how this goes. We'll be back like three hours from now. The best was, when we had, we did the Aaron Rogers podcast. And five minutes later, we had to hop back on the same zoom to do the Russell Wilson podcast. Something like that's going to happen this time. We'll see you next week.

Thank you, too. Spine Anderson for construction help with additional production provision by Arjuna Ramcapul. It's been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast.